Last year the Swiss injection moulding machine manufacturer Netstal, in cooperation with partner companies, succeeded in realizing the innovation „PRElactia“. This overmoulding process has been applied by the French customer PDG Plastiques since November 2007 to produce top-quality preforms with a light barrier for the dairy industry. For this feat PDG was awarded the „Oscar de l’emballage“ at the last international trade fair Emballage in Paris.
PRElactia is an outstanding overmoulding application for a light barrier. It took an intensive development cooperation between Netstal-Maschinen AG and the Spanish mouldmaker Molmasa to come up with this economically efficient, reliable and reproducible overmoulding process. To be able to guarantee the light barrier required in UHT milk bottles, moulding of the preforms in question is started by injecting an inner, grey layer.
In a further step this grey layer is overmoulded by a second layer in white colour. This gives the milk bottle its final radiant white appearance.This unique development enables the production of preforms for e.g. 1-litre milk bottles weighing 22g and displaying a total light absorption/reflection. PDG Plastiques domiciled in Malesherbes, France, was very quick in identifying the enormous potential of this overmoulding application.
In November 2007, as Netstal's first „PRElactia customer“, the company commissioned a Netstal SynErgy 2400-2150/900 equipped with a mould made by Molmasa especially for the overmoulding process. It didn't take long for success to set in, with the consequence that PDG won the „Oscar de l’emballage“ at this year's packaging exhibition Emballage in Paris for its production of PRElactia preforms featuring a one-hundred-percent effective light barrier for UHT milk.
The main suppliers in the dairy trade are convinced of the success of this overmoulding process and predict a bright future for PRElactia. This because comparable applications have not been able so far to come up with preforms weighing less than 28 g and at the same time offering an adequate and lasting light barrier. The enormous differences in material consumption and the resulting cost savings speak entirely in favour of PRElactia.
